About the Disability Rights Working Group
The Disability Rights Working Group (DRWG) is committed to the constant interrogation of our understanding and responses to issues that impact disabled people. The DRWG hosts activities that provide greater awareness of these issues and that foster disability equality.
Upcoming 2-Day Conference
Making Universities More inclusive for Staff with Disabilities
Dates: October 29-30, 2025
(All times are Central European Time, which is now +1 UTC)
Day 1: Conference Program (coming soon)
Day 2: Conference Program
Our Oxford Blog Series
We are thrilled to announce the launch of our blog series on The Oxford Human Rights Hub, Twenty-five Years of Protection Against Disability-based Discrimination in the EU: An Evolving Understanding of Disability.
Twenty-five years ago, the EU legally enshrined the prohibition of discrimination based on disability in the Employment Equality Directive. A series of posts coordinated by the our Disability Rights Working Group takes the arrival of this twenty-fifth anniversary as an invitation to reflect on the meaning and scope of this prohibition. After a quarter of a century, what developments have there been in the understanding of disability in European anti-discrimination law? This first post goes into the legislative framework and the evolving understanding of disability-based discrimination in landmark cases of the Court of Justice of the EU (‘the Court’).
Who We Are
Co-Directors
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Laverne Jacobs
- (During her service as a member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Professor Jacobs will continue to lead and work on academic projects with the Center, but will not be involved in any of our advocacy work.)
- she/her
Laverne Jacobs is a Professor of Law at the University of Windsor in Canada. She researches, writes and teaches actively in the areas of law and disability rights, human rights, and administrative law and justice. Through her research, she explores the lived experiences of people with disabilities in relation to the law. Professor Jacobs has published and lectured widely in Canada and internationally. She is the lead author of several books and articles including the first law and disability textbook in Canada (Law and Disability in Canada (2021)) and the Annotated Accessible Canada Act (2021). Professor Jacobs founded and directs The Law, Disability and Social Change Project, a research and public advocacy initiative housed at Windsor Law that works to foster and develop inclusive communities. She is also a Co-Director of the Disability Rights Working Group of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law.
Outside of the University, Dr. Jacobs has consulted with NGOs and government. She has been invited to serve on the Board of Directors of several organizations, has held public appointments on tribunals, and has testified as an expert before the Senate of Canada on disability issues. Dr. Jacobs has received recognition for her scholarship and leadership on disability equality, including the Touchstone Award from the Canadian Bar Association in 2021.
Dr. Laverne Jacobs was elected to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2022 for the 2023–2026 term.
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Lisa Waddington
- she/her
Lisa Waddington is the European Disability Forum Professor of European Disability Law. Her Chair was established in cooperation with the European Disability Forum. Professor Waddington participates in a number of European networks and projects, and is a member of the senior research team and legal research coordinator for the European Disability Expertise (EDE) Network, and the Senior Expert on the Ground of Disability in the European Network of Legal Research in Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination. Professor Waddington was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Université Saint-Louis, Brussels, in 2023.Professor Waddington is the first chair of the Disability Inclusion Group (DIG) established at Maastricht University in 2025. DIG represents the interests of staff with disabilities, chronic illnesses and neurodivergence at Maastricht University, and plays a role in the governance of the university. She is also joint coordinator of the UnliMited Staff Network, which is the network of staff with disabilities, chronic illnesses and neurodivergence at Maastricht University -
Marie Spinoy
- she/her
Marie Spinoy is a researcher in anti-discrimination law, affiliated with KU Leuven and Ghent University in Belgium. She regularly speaks, publishes and teaches on anti-discrimination law, on the rights of persons with disabilities and on feminist and queer legal theory and
research methods. She has a special interest in (potential) interactions between legal research and disability studies.Ms. Spinoy also has experience advising on legislative change concerning disability issues including advice to the Flemish government on anti-discrimination law reform (with professors Elke Cloots and Jogchum Vrielink) and on inclusive education for children with disabilities (with professor Kurt Willems). In 2025, she advised the Belgian senate on a constitutional amendment introducing a right to inclusion for persons with disabilities in the Belgian Constitution (with professor Stefan Sottiaux).
As of October 2023, she is a member of the Litigation Chamber of the Flemish Human Rights Institute, issuing non-binding rulings in discrimination cases (including disability-based discrimination). In that capacity, she also regularly comes across questions concerning the
accessibility of (quasi-)judicial procedures. She is also a member of a Flemish network aimed at bridging the gap between law and persons with disabilities (‘handicap en recht’). -
Brittany Postle
- she/her
Ford Foundation’s Judy Heumann Post Graduate Fellow at the Berkeley Center of Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law | Non-traditional Disabled student who earned her degree from UC Berkeley with a focus on disability rights as belonging | Research assistant to Professor Laverne Jacobs, sitting member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, conducting comparative international disability rights research | Guest lecturer at UC Berkeley’s American Studies department on disability and the wilderness, examining social constructs, the legacy of Justice William O. Douglas, and architectural exclusion
Student Assistants
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Harper Atkisson
- she/her
Harper Atkisson is a third-year undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, working as a research assistant for the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law. At UC Berkeley, she is enrolled in the College of Letters and Sciences, where she is double-majoring in Sociology and Legal Studies. Harper has a strong interest in human rights advocacy, policy development, and legal research.
At the Human Rights Investigations Lab within UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center, she conducts investigations into human rights violations and international crimes using digital open-source information. As Team Lead at the Student Policy Institute at Berkeley, she collaborates with Berkeley City Council members to develop policy memos on issues fundamental to city residents’ health and welfare, supervising a team of 6 Research Associates. During the summer of 2025, she interned with Bright Futures UK in London, leading a research project on peer support networks for young people with long-term illnesses.
Her work at the Berkeley Center and the Disability Rights Working Group is informed by her commitment to equality, anti-discrimination law, and human rights advocacy.
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Jolie Glasser
- she/her
Jolie Glasser is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, working as a research assistant for the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law. At UC Berkeley, she majors in American Studies with a concentration in “Disability Studies, Politics, and Society” and holds a Disability Studies Minor. She has a strong interest in advocacy work, particularly within the intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) community, and brings experience in research on disability and accessibility.
Her previous research focuses particularly on educational accessibility for high school students. Additionally, she has four years of experience working in the classroom with students with IDD, developing accessible and inclusive teaching practices. In 2020, she created a website that provides accessible curriculum and virtual lesson plans to support teachers in facilitating virtual learning.
Her work at the Berkeley Center and the Disability Rights Working Group is informed by her commitment to politically intersectional approaches to disability and law.